I think Queer is possibly singled out as an irreclaimable slur/identity term because it is such a fluid and encompassing term. Literally anyone who feels they fall outside of cishetero-normativity can use Queer and that is where it comes up against objections. People who want to cause rifts within the community will fight against its use and shout “Queer is a slur” and exclusionists pick it up and use it as a way to close people out. They don’t want the umbrella wide like Queer gives us

apersnicketylemon:

thefisherqueen:

terflies:

Oh yes, absolutely.

Queer is dangerous to these people; they want it to be a slur.

We’re here, we’re queer, we’re dangerous to gatekeepers, and that’s a good thing

It’s especially apparent that their real issue is not with it ‘being a slur’ when we consider the term ‘MOGAI’.

This term was not a slur. It had no ‘problematic’ beginnings, has never been co-opted by straight and cis society, was for us by us, did not include anyone who did not need to be included, but it was very inclusive. So they lied about it, rejected it, and use it as an insult against people. They talk about ‘The mogai’s and ‘mogai identities’ as though they’re some kind of joke. They talk about it like it’s the worst thing you could be to them.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the term. It’s just too inclusive and encompassing for them. They can’t cause a rift in that community if that’s the acronym. They can’t cut portions out of an ever-expanding community if all the identities are contained within it automatically.

Their current reasoning is ‘it includes pedophiles’ which is a blatant lie (The original coiner was a minor at the time they coined it and they’re also a CSA survivor). The other reasoning I’ve seen is ‘it includes cis and straight women’ (It doesn’t). They have NO real reason to reject that term, especially as it was created to BE the umbrella term they claimed to want so desperately without ‘being a slur’. And yet, they do. Because it’s too inclusive. “Queer is a slur” is at this point, a deflect. They need it to be a slur because it’s too inclusive. They can’t cause a rift in the queer community if the word used for the community is all-encompassing. Just like they need MOGAI to include people it never did, so they can safely reject the label that was just too inclusive for their liking, too difficult to cause rifts in. They need these terms to be dangerous, bad, ‘problematic’ or a slur, because they need us to not have an encompassing umbrella if they are going to maintain their gatekeeping.